A standard printing architecture may include a hardware and software configuration that supports limited customization in executing a print job. To meet a customer's requirements for customization of a print job, a provider of printing software may modify a standard product with special software modifications. If multiple customers have special software modifications, the servicing and troubleshooting of printer problems may become uneconomical for the customers, the provider, or both. For example, standard documentation on a standard software product may no longer apply to a modified version of the standard software product. Further, modifications may vary from customer to customer, such that universal training of technicians on a standard software product is not helpful in troubleshooting. The software provider may be contractually obligated to provide quality assurance and certification tests for a software product. Differences in the design of the software products may make such quality assurance and certification tests more costly and difficult to implement.
Although numerous modifications of software are possible, the provider of printing software may use at least one of several typical techniques to customize standard software. In accordance with one technique, standard software instructions are modified to do raster image processing (RIP) and store the processed data to tagged image file format (TIFF) files to allow for printing at a later time. In accordance with another technique, the standard software instructions are modified to impose a transparent “mail-merge” application that is generally transparent to a user.
A software provider may even employ a special group of software engineers to create and provide technical support for the foregoing software modifications. The salaries, wages, benefits, and operating expenses of the special engineering group may add to the cost of the software products or reduce financial returns that might otherwise be possible. Moreover, the special group requires time to design and test software modifications to achieve the customization, which may delay the availability of modified printer software for anxious customers. Thus, a need exists for allowing for customization to the standard product and a print job without modifying the standard printing system in a non-uniform manner. Further, a need exists to be able to exercise the customization of a print job dynamically from within a print job.